


Powdered Sugar & Motor Oil

by Zakani_Donovan



Series: Ineffably Yours (Ineffable Husbands AU Week 2020) [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Likes Crowley (Good Omens), Baker AU, Crowley Likes Aziraphale, F/F, Fluff, Human AU, Ineffable Husbands AU Week 2020, Ineffable Wives | Female Aziraphale/Female Crowley (Good Omens), Lesbian, Meet-Cute, mechanic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26454787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zakani_Donovan/pseuds/Zakani_Donovan
Summary: Antoni J. Crowley is having some car trouble. It’s a very good thing that there’s an incredibly adorable and kind mechanic on the job.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Anathema Device, Crowley & Madame Tracy
Series: Ineffably Yours (Ineffable Husbands AU Week 2020) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922614
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Powdered Sugar & Motor Oil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jenanigans1207](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenanigans1207/gifts).



> Day 3 of Ineffable Husbands AU Week 2020.
> 
> Prompts to choose from: Mechanic AU and/or Baker AU.
> 
> Prompt chosen: Both.

This morning had been a disaster for Antoni J. Crowley. First: she woke up late because she had forgotten to turn on the sound of her phone, so she never heard the alarm. Second: the hot water in the shower didn't want to work, so she was a shivering mess while she was trying to bathe. Third: her hair and makeup were refusing to cooperate, so she threw on a beanie and hoped the makeup wasn't too horrible. Fourth: her car refused to start, so she had to call a tow-truck to haul it over to a mechanic, which she would have to deal with once she got out of work for the day. And fifth: she had to take the bus to work.

It was 8:30 by the time she reached Wicked Sugar Cakes, which could've been worse because they opened at 9: 00 on Saturdays. The owner was waiting for her at the entrance. Anathema Device had been best friends with Antoni since they were toddlers, and knew when she was in a bad mood just by the way she walked. She opened the door for her before asking. "Hey Crowley, what happened to you?"

She shoved past Anathema, hopped over the counter, dropped her bag and grabbed her apron from the hook. "More like 'what **didn't** happen to me?' The only way today could've been any worse was if it had started raining on my way over here!" She said as she tied it in a very aggressive manner, then grabbed some disinfectant spray to clean the part of the counter she had stepped and sat on.

Anathema, who went around the counter like a civilized person, crossed her arms and raised a brow. "I'll assume leaving your phone behind is part of the reason why you're in such a horrible mood. I called like 4 times and you never picked up. Didn't even bother to text me back."

And just like that, Crowley was patting herself all over to find said phone. She looked like she was about to storm out of the place to go get it just as Anathema reached into her bag and found it for her. Crowley looked incredibly frustrated.

"Okay hon, here's what we're gonna do. I don't want you near the ovens or knives until you can calm down a bit. Me and Tracy will handle the kitchen, you work the front. Did you eat anything before leaving your flat?" She asked in a very motherly tone.

Crowley glared at her. "What do you think?"

"Me neither. Alright, go throw some water on your face while I make us some breakfast. Then I'll listen to you bitch about everything that went wrong today while we eat."

The skinnier woman gave her friend a quick hug before giving her an exaggerated kiss on the top of her head. "God, I love you."

"You'd better, considering all the shit I do for you." Said Anathema, amused, as she wiped her forehead to make sure Crowley hadn't left any of that dark, red lipstick behind.

"Hey, I may be a disaster but I got you a husband, so I'm not **too** terrible." She said before going over to the bathroom to wash her face.

Anathema shrugged lazily. "True. If it wasn't for you, I would've never responded to that DM from Newt." She admitted.

Crowley scoffed as she dried her face with a paper towel. "Technically, you never did. It was me doing the texting. You were running around the living room screaming 'Omg this is actually happening!' I really should've recorded that, I hadn't seen you that excited in years."

The dark haired woman rolled her eyes and went into the kitchen to get started on breakfast just as Tracy walked in. Before opening time, both ladies were caught up with Crowley's disaster of a morning.

~~~~~

After a long shift, Anathema gave Crowley a ride to the mechanic's garage. The redhead entered the establishment and was greeted by a very handsome man with deep, purple eyes.

"Welcome to Pristine Motors. My name is Gabriel Fell, how may I help you?" He said from behind the computer.

Crowley walked up to he counter. "Yeah, my car got towed here this morning? I just wanna see if they've managed to figure out what was wrong with it?"

"Ma'am, I'll need you to be a bit more specific, please."

"Black 2011 Bentley Continental GT that wouldn't start over on Mayfair? I yelled at the chubby man who drove the truck?" She mentioned awkwardly.

A lightbulb seemed to go off in the man's head. "Ah yes, Miss Crowley!" He said as he looked for her name in the computer.

She was scratching the back of her neck now, nodding. "Yup, that'd be me. I should also apologize to that man, is he in at the moment?"

Gabriel waved it off. "Oh, Sandy doesn't take any of those moments seriously. You have nothing to worry about. Now, according to my system, my baby sister was just looking it over but hasn't specified anything in the computer yet. She's always hand-writing the reports. You can go in and speak with her if you want, she's over in pit 3."

"Pit 3, got it." She said as she sauntered through the door which lead to all the workers.

The smell of motor oil and metal were the first things she noticed. Second was all the noises and the shouting from all the mechanics. As she approached pit 3, she quickly noticed her lovely car. Other than the hood being popped open, it looked exactly the same as it did this morning before heading to work. Upon getting closer, she noticed the pair of feet sticking out from the bottom. Seemingly sensing her presence, the mechanic wheeled themselves out from under the vehicle and stood.

Crowley nearly gawked at her. She was tall, curvy and muscular. Hair so blond, you'd swear it's white which was mostly buzzed close to her scalp, except for the top, which was very curly. Big, sparkling, bright eyes which were a perfect mix of blue and green. Chubby, rosy cheeks and a smile that made her insides turn to mush. Fucking Hell, she was gorgeous. The sweat and motor oil couldn't even try to hide how pretty she was.

Once she finished wiping the excess grease from her hands with an old, tartan rag, she spoke. "I take it you're the owner of this fine machine?"

Oh lord, her voice was much softer than Crowley had imagined. Her only reaction was to blink and nod.

The mechanic smiled, stuffing the rag into the back pocket of her work overalls. "My name's Aziraphale, pleasure to meet you, Miss...?"

Finally remembering how to talk, the skinny redhead stuck out her right hand and introduced herself properly. "Crowley. Antoni J. Crowley. Pleasure's all mine. Um- what have you managed to find or fix or...?" She said, gesturing to the whole car with her other hand.

The lovely mechanic shook her hand firmly and gave her another smile. "Well Miss Crowley, your battery was **very** much dead. As was your front-left turn-signal. Everything else was tickety-boo."

"Tickety-boo?" Crowley said to herself, having never heard that expression, as Aziraphale continued.

"Oh, yes. And judging by how immaculate everything else was, it's quite obvious you take good care of it and this was likely an issue that happened because you were busy."

Crowley nodded. "I usually **am** busy, yeah. I try to keep it as clean as I can. I love this car. Wanted it ever since I first saw one." She admitted, her hand falling atop the hood, almost as if she were caressing it.

"I can see why. It's a lovely model." Agreed the blond.

"Yeah. So, what- um, how much do I owe?" Asked Crowley, bracing herself.

Aziraphale sighed lightly, feeling and looking a bit guilty as she nervously fidgeted with her hands. "About 400, I'm afraid. The turn-signal was more than a faulty bulb and we only use premium car batteries here. If you don't have it all right now, you can make several payments. You'd just need to talk it over with my sister Uriel. Her office is over there, at the end." She hoped the information would lessen the blow in terms of stress.

For many years, she'd see customers worry over not being able to pay their bills. Recently, she had started telling their clients about making several lower payments rather than the overwhelming total. Uriel hadn't appreciated this at first, but upon realizing it made their clients trust them more and they would recommend the family business more because of it, she had to admit, Aziraphale's kindness was something valuable. Just like she had done with several others, she accompanied the tall redhead to the financial office, where a payment plan was established. Soon after, Crowley was driving out of the garage in her Bentley, which sounded and felt as good as new.

~~~~~

"Anathema, I'm telling you, she was the most gorgeous being I've ever seen on this planet!" She gushed over the phone. It had been hours since she had gotten home, eaten, showered, watched some mindless reality tv, but she still couldn't get over Aziraphale. So naturally, when Anathema called for one of their nightly chats, the topic came up.

A single chuckle was heard at the other end of the line. "You sound smitten. Is she your usual type?"

"No! You know I like girls who are shorter than me. She's about as tall as me!" She exclaimed, her face flushing.

"What about her style?"

Crowley glared at her phone. "How the fuck would I know, Ana? She was in uniform!"

"Don't get snippy with me just because you're thirsty!"

"Sorry." She said sincerely.

"You're forgiven. Continue."

The redhead sighed, leaning against her headboard. "Not much else to tell. She was incredibly sweet. The main reason I'm looking forward to my next payment there is 'cause I might see her again."

"You're adorable when you have crushes, you know that right?"

"Oh, shut it!... Oh shit, I got an idea!" She yelled, bolting up from the bed.

"This should be good."

"Right, so while her sister went to get some documents from another office, we talked a bit. Small talk, 'where are you from?', what do you do?' That sort of thing, right? So, when I said I worked for you, she just started going on and on about how good your cakes are-"

"Thank you for feeding my ego." Interrupted Anathema.

"You're welcome. Anyway, if I bring her a cupcake or something next time I go pay, maybe I can open up a conversation to see if asking her out would be a possibility."

"Crowley, if you take just one, you'll be too obvious. If you take a whole box, however-"

"You just want more money." Said Crowley with a smirk.

"I run a business, of course I do."

The skinny, freckled woman waved her hand around, even though she wasn't in front of her best friend. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Take it out my paycheck."

"I was going to. Just like I do every strawberry you take from the big fridge, not the personal fridge."

"What?! But I'm so sneaky!" She could've sworn she had never been caught.

"You forget we have cameras all over the place, Crowley."

The redhead facepalmed. "Ahh, fuck! How much per strawberry?"

"Usually 50 cents. 75 if it was a particularly big one."

After thinking it over for a moment, she shrugged it off, not seeing a real reason to be outraged. "Y'know what? I don't care. You let me live with you, rent free, for two years after we graduated. I owe you more than a bunch of strawberries."

They talked for several hours before heading to bed.

~~~~~

A week passed and Crowley made her way over to Pristine Motors after finishing up for the day, a dozen cupcakes in hand. Once again, she was first greeted by Gabriel but he was occupied with a seemingly important phone call. He gestured for her to pass to the back. The redhead went straight to Uriel's office first. After her second payment was made, she gave Uriel a cupcake before leaving.

Crowley looked into every pit, unsure if every mechanic had their designated area or if they used whichever was available at the time. Soon, she saw that familiar head of platinum blond curls.

"Aziraphale, hi!" She started, immediately regretting it because she sounded so awkward.

Thankfully, the greased up woman didn't seem to notice, and simply smiled. "Miss Crowley! How are you?"

"Good, good. And you?"

"Oh, I'm fantastic. How's the car? Anything else out of order?"

"No, no, it's fine. You made sure of that. Just came down to make a payment and bring these as an extra 'thank you' for all of you." She said, lifting up the pastry box a bit more.

"How kind of you! This can be quite tiring work, so a snack to pick us up is greatly appreciated."

"Yeah, Uriel said something like that too. So, I'm assuming you guys have a break-room but I don't know where it is, so do you think you could-"

"Of course! Right this way."

Admittedly, Crowley just expected to give the box to the pretty mechanic and be on her merry way but she had no issue with following her to the back to a door which read 'employees only'. She washed her hands thoroughly as she told Crowley about a similar turn-signal issue she was dealing with today. After that, she popped open the box of treats and eyed them all carefully, unsure of what to pick.

"They all look **very** scrummy. Any recommendations, my dear?" She asked while looking over at the redhead.

Crowley shrugged as she focused on the box. "That green looking one in the corner is new. Pear, if I'm not mistaken."

That seemed to be enough of an answer for Aziraphale, who grabbed the specified dessert. "I like pears."

Crowley very nearly fainted at the sight of Aziraphale taking a bite out of the cupcake. And the indulgent little moan and wiggle that left her certainly didn't help matters. Plus, the pastel green frosting on the corner of her mouth. The skinny baker was sure she was blushing, but tried to play it off nonchalantly. Once again, thankfully, Aziraphale didn't seem to notice.

"Oh Antoni, this is wonderful! You can tell Anathema this new creation of her's is a success."

The flustered redhead gave her a curt nod. "I'll, uh, I'll be sure to do that! I've got to get going, but I'll see ya around." She said, all but jogging out of there.

"Mind how you go!" Yelled the blond with a tiny wave.

~~~~~

Two weeks later, Crowley found herself dialing that company's number again. Mainly, because she was out of options. "Pristine Motors, how may we help you?" Said Gabriel's usual customer-pleasing voice as he answered the phone.

Crowley sighed, rubbing her temples. "Yeah, I got into a bit of an accident on the M25. Got a flat tire, kinda crashed into a post."

"Ma'am are you sure you don't need medical assistance? Your car can wait if-" He sounded genuinely concerned but she quickly assured him of her condition.

"I'm fine. Car's only got a scratch on the side, I just need someone who can change the flat. I've got a spare but I'm not strong enough to do it myself. And no one seems to be stopping any time soon to help me." She explained.

Gabriel sounded relieved. "Okay, ma'am. Let's just get your information and we'll send someone out there to help you."

After about 20 minutes, Crowley saw the familiar tow-truck approach. She expected to see that 'Sandy' fellow from her first encounter with the mechanics, but was surprised when she saw Aziraphale climbing out of the truck instead.

"Hello, Miss Crowley. I hope you're well, other than this little annoyance. Worry not, we'll have you back on the road in a jiffy." She said in her usual bubbly fashion. Speaking of fashion, she wasn't wearing her work overalls. She was in jeans and a short-sleeved tartan shirt, which showed off her muscles. Quite the change compared to all the other times she had seen her.

Although Crowley was a bit too distracted by her ongoing work task to notice Aziraphale's attire. "Thank The Lord! I'm in trouble if I don't deliver this birthday cake to Tadfield on time."

"Can't have that, can we? You told Gabriel you had a spare, yes?"

Crowley nodded and popped the trunk. "And the tools to change the tire. I just lack the strength."

To her surprise, Aziraphale gave her a bit of a glare. "Oh Antoni, I doubt that very much. Surely you haul around heavy bags of flour on a daily basis."

"That's not the same."

The blond shrugged as she grabbed all the tools she needed. "Perhaps not, but I still believe you're able to learn how to do this yourself. I'd be happy to teach you a trick I know, one day when neither of us are in a hurry."

"That sounds great. I'll take you up on that some day."

Aziraphale smiled at the redhead before getting to work. As she did everything, the skinny baker tried very hard not to gawk at the mechanic. She worked so effortlessly, like she wasn't breaking a sweat. Within minutes, she was done and making sure there was nothing else wrong with the car. After double checking everything, the chubby mechanic climbed out of the car. "You're all set. Best get going, before you hit traffic. Tadfield's a bit far."

"You're telling me." Groaned the redhead, but smiled. "Thank you, my knight in shining... tartan. How much do I owe?"

"I'll have them add it to your tab at the garage. Go, before you're late to the party!" She urged.

If she was being honest with herself, the ongoing fixing of her car and conversation with Aziraphale had made her forget just how much of a time crunch she was truly in. She practically jumped into her car and sped down the motorway. It was only hours later when she noticed that the blond woman had left something atop the Bentley's dashboard. A small piece of paper with her name, phone number and a smiley face.

Antoni J. Crowley very nearly got evicted that night in her flat for screaming her little head off while on the phone with Anathema. Of course, the infernal screeching lead to nothing, as the freckled woman was much too scared to call or text first. Ironic, and Anathema let her know many times. And since she lacked some of her childhood friend's confidence, she couldn't return the favor and text for her, as it would probably just ruin things.

~~~~~

When she went to Pristine Motors for her final payment, Crowley felt disappointed. Every other time after the flat tire, whenever she went to pay, Aziraphale wasn't around for one reason or another. She had assumed 'Alright, I'm a fairly big coward over the phone for some reason, but maybe I could work up my nerve in person. Some people are like that, right?'. Whatever the case, after today, she had no reason to come back here unless something bad happened to her car. Her wallet was **very** much hoping that didn't happen for a **very** long time.

As soon as she left Uriel's office, she ran into Aziraphale. Although, something was different. She didn't look like her usual, happy self. She was pouting and looked concerned.

"Antoni, hello! Um, do you have a moment?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure. What's up?" She leaned back on the nearest wall and hoped her face wasn't as red as it felt.

Aziraphale was fidgeting with her hands, nervously. "I just need to know: Did I completely misunderstand?"

Crowley titled her head and raised her left eyebrow. "Misunderstand **what** exactly?"

The chubby woman let out a sigh. "Oh dear, this is embarrassing. Apparently, I'm as blind as a bat when it comes to people being interested in me and my sisters told me you were 'into' me and that it had gone completely over my head. So, considering I find you very attractive as well, I left my number in your car. But since you never reached out, I came to the conclusion I was a bit too dense for you in that regard and you decided against-"

Crowley grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. "Please tell me you're **not** joking!"

Aziraphale was fairly confused by this. "Why would I joke about something like this? I-"

The redhead's grin was that of relief. "Because I'm just as hopeless when it comes to picking up on signals! I didn't know if the smiley face was just that, or if you wanted to go out. I chickened out of calling so many times 'cause I was afraid I'd ask you out to dinner and you'd tell me to sod off! That you were married or something or just wanted to help a fellow woman not depend on anyone in a car emergency." She rambled.

The blond mechanic's demeanor had shifted back to her usual, sweet personality. "Well, that last bit is accurate, but I also would like to take you out somewhere nice. With, hopefully, a better smell and atmosphere than anywhere car related."

"Hell, I'll take you out right now, if you're free." She said, seemingly regaining some confidence.

"Oh my dear, I wish I could, but I'm far too busy today."

"Alright, you got a day off?"

"Thursdays. You?"

"Fridays, but I can change that."

"I'll call you?" Asked Aziraphale, excited.

"You'll need my number first, hold on." Said Crowley as she reached into her purse. Out came a pen but no paper. Aziraphale simply offered her hand and the redhead scribbled down her digits.

With that, she left, practically kissing her Bentley in the process. "Thank Someone for that dead battery!"


End file.
